Mad Dogs
by Supernoodle
Summary: Set before Sam leaves for college. Dean is hurting badly, in more ways than one. Can Sam & John call a truce & work together to save him? Angsty, hurty goodness. Heatstroke, seizures & Dean in a bathtub! Feedback equals love!
1. Chapter 1

_Right then, welcome to my next little tale. This is set Pre-Series, before Sam leaves for college. Dean is 21 and Sam 17, so if at some point during this fic you think that Dean maybe sounds a bit of a wussy, you have to remember that he's still pretty young and hasn't yet become the hardened, battle weary soul that we all know and love._

_Anyway, this is pure angsty, hurty, Dean whumpage… No reason for it other that I wanted Dean all hot and sweaty and delirious. It's a sickness, I know, but I just can't help myself._

_Actually, there is some other reason. I wanted to try out a different style to my normal way of writing. This story is broken into sets of three scenes… Three different times and three different viewpoints to carry the story forward. Dean's, Sam's and the back story that set the brothers on the path that they are on. I hope it works._

_This story is as depressing as hell, but what can I do? I have no control over what spills out of my head and through my fingers. Blame the muse!_

_As usual, I own nothing but the way that the words are arranged – unfortunately all characters and anything else you might recognize do not belong to me. (sighs)_

_Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Please review… It makes me very happy._

_Supernoodle - 8__th__ August 2007_

* * *

**Mad Dogs**

**By Supernoodle**

**-o-**

**One**

**-o-**

Heat haze shimmered as the midday sun beat down on the big black car that was sat silent and unmoving in the middle of the dusty road. The windshield was smashed and smeared with dried on blood, the fender crumpled and bonnet caved in. The carcass of the big mule deer buck that had bolted out onto the road lay a few feet away, its eyes already lost to the predatory birds that circled the sky and a crow sat on the car's roof, peering down through the glass of the passenger window, wondering with its tiny, clever brain if there were any choice pickings to be had inside as well.

Suddenly the sharp ring of a cell phone broke the silence and the crow cawed loudly and took to flight, but there was no movement inside the wrecked car. The young man whose phone it was remained motionless; eyes closed and slumped on his side across the front seats.

Little nuggets of shattered glass nestled in the boy's mousy, sun streaked hair, glistening in the sunlight like deadly gemstones - and the blood that trickled thickly down the side of his pale face from the deep cut on his forehead had begun to pool on the ancient leather seat under his cheek, sticky and clotting in the blistering heat.

**-o-**

"I need you to find this man." John Winchester had told his oldest son, handing him a picture and an address on a scrap of motel notepaper as he began packing his stuff into his duffle bag. It wasn't a very big bag; the man didn't have many things to pack. _Travel light_, he always said. _Be ready to haul ass at a moment's notice_. "He has something we need - a map."

"_Okay?..."_ Dean had replied, slightly confused. One minute they were heading off to New Orleans, then one phone call later and everything had changed and all without a moment's explanation. Not that Dean expected an explanation; he didn't need one - he'd do anything his Dad asked him to without question, but Sam was not so accepting, not anymore anyway – but then the youngest Winchester had always asked too many questions and had never been satisfied with any reply that Dean or John had given him, and deep down, if Dean was really honest with himself, he was losing patience with his father's never-ending Commander-In-Chief routine. But it wasn't going to be a problem - Dean was never really honest with anyone anymore, especially himself. Life just seemed to be easier that way.

The Winchesters were currently holed up in a cheap cowboy themed motel somewhere deep in Arizona, had been for the past week and a half. John had been restless, waiting for something, some piece of information, which he had obviously just managed to get. Sam had spent the time studying and Dean, having nothing else to do, spent the time sunbathing, swimming in the suspiciously heavily chlorinated motel pool, and tinkering with his car. As his Dad frequently told him, there was always something that needed adjusting on classics like the Impala, and he wasn't lying. Owning such a high-maintenance gas-guzzler in their line of work was impractical to say the least, but Dean would no sooner part with his baby than he would part with Sam. The Impala was a cool, fine looking piece of old Detroit muscle, but that wasn't all of it; that car was the only thing Dean truly owned, the only thing that was his alone – and it was the only home he'd known in the last 17 years.

"Where are you going, Dad?" Sam asked, not really expecting much of an answer and not really getting one.

"I gotta go and see someone… They have some information for me."

"Great!" The youngest Winchester replied, flopping down in the chair by the little TV in the corner of the motel room, folding his arms in sulky annoyance. "What about me?"

Dean had looked apprehensively from his little brother to his Dad, hoping desperately that this wasn't going to be the start of another fight. The older Sam got, the more like their Dad he became - obstinate, stubborn, pig-headed. The two of them just seemed to rub each other up the wrong way lately and it was getting worse, had been getting a lot worse since Sam turned seventeen.

Dean had been trying desperately to ignore the tension between them, pretend it wasn't happening, but more and more he was being dragged into the middle of their fights and it hurt. The two people he loved most in the world were so caught up in trying to prove the other wrong that neither of them noticed what it was doing to him.

Dean was diplomatic by nature, had become a master of making peace over the years, and he would rather have bitten his own tongue off and choke on it than tell them how he felt. If he let slip to Sam or his Dad how much they upset him by putting him in the middle, it would only cause more resentment between them, and they would only blame each other and use the knowledge as ammo in the next fight. So as usual, Dean kept it all to himself, like all the other hurts, and hoped that all that bottled up emotion wasn't going to give him a brain aneurism one day.

"You are going to stay here, Sam. You have school work to do." John had told his youngest son, and Sam had pouted and replied with a _"Yeah, whatever'_".

Then he turned to Dean and gave him the same stern look. "As soon as you get that map, Dean. You need to call me… You think you can manage that?"

"Yes sir." Dean replied obediently. Slightly hurt by his Dad's irritated tone. _He_ hadn't done anything wrong, and sighing heavily, he began to gather a few bits together ready for the journey out into the desert, wishing to hell that things could go back to the way they used to be before the two of them began seriously locking horns.

**-o-**

Sam paced the small hotel room, his long legs eating up the space in about three strides. He had the cell phone to his ear and it was ringing, but his brother wasn't picking up.

"Goddamit, Dean." He muttered under his breath and when it went through to voicemail for the twentieth time, Sam gave up trying to call him brother and dialled his father's number instead.

"He's not answering, Dad." Sam yelled down the phone. The line was noisy and it sounded like his Dad was driving. "Did you try to call him?"

"No, not yet."

Sam shook his head and sighed. "It's not switched off – his phone is ringing but he isn't answering. It's not like him, Dad. He always picks up, even when he's driving."

Listen, Sam. I can't really speak right now." His father's voice replied down the crackling line. "Give it an hour or so and call me back if you don't hear from him."

Typical, Sam thought to himself. Whatever Dad was doing was far more important than his Son's wellbeing. "Fine!" He yelled and he snapped the phone shut and threw it on the bed in frustration.

The errand, job - whatever it had been, was only supposed to take Dean a couple of hours, three at the most. Drive to some town, find some guy, get some map, and drive right back. Nothing to it, right?

Dean had left at just gone eight that morning and now it was midday. He should have been back at the motel by half-ten, eleven am at the latest. Sam had begun calling him at quarter to eleven and an hour later, he was still only getting the five rings then the voicemail. It was so unlike his brother. When he was out on a job Dean kept in almost constant contact, as much to make sure Sam wasn't in any trouble as to let Sam know that he was okay.

Dean had called him at around nine to tell him that he'd just seen a really cool cow skull half buried in the desert sand, and then nothing - no contact at all since then.

Something was wrong, Sam knew it.

Now all he had to do was convince his Dad, and as always, that was going to be easier said than done.

**-o-**


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

**-o-**

_Why was it so hot?_ Dean thought to himself irritably.

He tried to force his eyes open, tried to get up to open a window, maybe get a glass of water but his body wasn't obeying his wishes. Had Sam left the heater on in the room again? That kid was always cold.

He could feel moisture trickling down his face, into his eyes and he wiped his hand down his face. Something sharp scratched into his cheek and the palm of his hand, and he frowned. _What the hell was sharp?_ Goddamn motel beds. Maybe one day he'd have a bed of his own again? Nice soft mattress, duck down duvet, some of those Egyptian cotton sheets that he'd heard people raving about on TV... His own bed in his own home - that would just about be heaven.

Dean licked his lips, they felt dry and cracked, and his tongue felt weird and swollen in his mouth. He was so thirsty. Should get up and get a drink, would suffer for it in the morning with a stinking headache if he didn't. Not good to get dehydrated, not good to let himself get sick. Dad would be pissed. He was relying on him. Had to be sharp, be ready. Show no weakness - couldn't let Dad down. If he let him down, he might leave - might never come back one day. He'd threatened it a few times, mostly when he'd come home drunk, which to be fair hadn't been that often, but Dean had never forgotten, never would forget. Dad might be better off without him - Sammy too. Sam was going to leave soon anyway, he'd found the college forms that his little brother had tried to hide… Sam would leave, Dad would leave, and then he would just be alone. Then what would he do? _What the hell would he do?_

He couldn't live this life alone. It was too freakin' hard.

Dean tried to swallow but his throat was too dry and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Why the hell was it so hot?

His head was killing him already.

**-o-**

The map had been the beginning of it all. A small scrap of paper the size of a greetings card, yellowed and tattered with age. John had heard from a guy who'd heard from another guy that there was a third guy who lived somewhere in the desert wilds of Arizona, and that guy had a map with some very important information on it.

Dean had headed out early, wanting to get most of the journey done before the sun got too high in the sky. The Impala had no air-con to speak of and he couldn't face though thought of driving through the desert in 115 degree heat, while his clothes stuck to him and the inside of the car turned into a oven.

Dean had found the guy, deposited the map safely in his shirt pocket, and was on his way back when the huge buck deer had run out into the road. He'd just barely had time to register the movement from the edge of his vision before he hit the creature. It had all happened so quickly, he'd had no time to react - the animal's huge body was up on the bonnet and had smashed through the windscreen, legs thrashing before he could even hit the brakes.

Never one for seatbelts, Dean had been thrown forwards into the steering wheel by the force of the impact, knees smacking into the dash and head colliding with the glass before slumping back onto the seat and slipping into unconscious as the car stalled and slowly came to a stop. A moment later, the mangled body of the buck slid bloodily off the hood and dropped to the blacktop, quivering and twitching in the dust, and then everything was still and quite apart from the sound of the Impala's engine ticking as it began to cool.

**-o-**

Looking around guiltily, Sam opened the door of the Taurus and slid behind the wheel. He had never stolen a car before, unless you counted the time when he took the Impala out for a night-time spin when he was fifteen, and it turned out that Dean had known about that all along anyway, following behind at an inconspicuous distance in their Dad's truck, so it didn't really count. Not that he was stealing this Taurus – he was merely borrowing it. He would return it good as new in a few hours if all went to plan. Which he hoped to hell it did.

He had done what his Dad had asked – sat tight and called him back in an hour because Dean still had not answered up his phone. There was no way that something wasn't wrong and even if their Dad didn't care if Dean was ok, he sure as hell did.

He has seen the young British couple from the neighbouring motel room wander off down the road earlier that morning and even then, the seeds of what he was going to do have taken root in his brain. Just after speaking to his Dad for the last time, Sam had picked the lock to their room, taken the car keys from the sideboard where they had left them and was in the car before arousing anyone's suspicion. Like Dean, he was well trained in the ways of the criminal but of course, just like his brother - and Batman - he only used his powers for good. One of the most valuable lessons Sam had learned in his young life was that although you had to know wrong from right, sometimes you had to do wrong things if it was for the right reasons.

Starting the car, Sam carefully drove out of the motel's car park and out on to the road.

"I'm coming, Dean." He muttered under his breath, switching on the air-con and the radio. "Even if Dad doesn't care, I'm coming."

He needed some music to calm him down. His nerves were jumping all over the place - partly due to the fact that he'd just stolen a car, but mostly from worrying about his big brother. Dean was in trouble, something bad had happened.

He just knew it.

**-o-**


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

**-o-**

The phone stopped ringing and the car was silent apart from Dean's own harsh breathing, then a moment later it started again.

"Sammy…" Dean gasped, his voice thin as tissue paper and as cracked as a dried husk of corn. He knew it would be Sam on the phone – no one else ever called him. He wondered vaguely who would call to check up on him when Sam left, knowing deep down that the answer would be no-one.

Rolling slowly over onto his back, head spinning and just about ready to split open with pain, Dean pulled the phone from his pocket. He tried to focus his eyes on the screen of the Nokia, on the buttons, but his hands were slick with blood and sweat and shaking so badly he could barely hold the thing. Then it slipped from his grasp, bounced off the edge of the seat and landed in the foot well where it rang for another few seconds before becoming silent once again.

He was so thirsty. Thirsty and hot - the seat beneath him felt like it was on fire and sweat was pouring off him, soaking through his clothes. When he'd left that morning, the desert had been cool and he'd worn a heavy flannel shirt over his faded grey Metallica T-shirt. Now the sun was high in the sky, turning the inside of the car into something akin to an oven.

Dean's head swam, nausea rolled in his stomach, and he prayed he wouldn't throw up because he didn't think he could sit up even if his life depended on it. Although he loved Hendrix, he had no desire to meet an untimely demise the same way as the guy.

The sun beat down through the cracked windshield, dazzling him with little glints of light that stabbed in to his brain like golden knives and he tried to roll away but even the tiniest of movements was agonizing.

He'd been hurt bad before. As John Winchester had told his sons on many different occasions, what they did was a dangerous gig and injuries were to be expected. Dean had been so badly hurt in the past that Sam had burst into tears at the mere sight of his big brother being half-carried, bloodied and gasping with pain by their Dad through the door of whichever motel they happened to be staying in at the time. And then there were the few times that his injuries had been too much for even his Dad's first aid skills and Dean had found himself waking up in some hospital room. Despite this, Dean thought hazily, he had never felt as awful as he did right at that minute. Not even close. The pain in his head was unrelenting - it felt like someone was sticking a red hot poker through the front of his skull, and he was sure he was more than halfway to being baked alive. In short, he was buggered and he knew it

The phone began to ring again and Dean closed his eyes as a stray tear slipped from the corner of his eye. The phone was only on the floor of the car, about a foot away from his head, but it may as well have been a million miles away.

"Help me, Sam." He sobbed almost inaudibly. "Please, Sammy? Dad... Please come and get me?"

**-o-**

Dean had watched his brother stuff the college application forms into his bag and fill up the rest of it with clothes. Sam wasn't very good at hiding things from his brother, yet he was a master at hiding things from their Dad. Dean wondered if that made Sam kind of dumb or if it just meant that he was extra sneaky. He decided on the latter. The kid had never been able to keep anything secret from him.

He'd found the forms a few weeks ago and had been torn between being proud of his brother and being furious with him - not to mention hurt. Sam really wanted to leave them - leave _him_, and of course Dean understood why. Sam had always been smart. _He'd_ got the good looks and Sam had got the brains, and given the chance, who wouldn't want to go to college? But their Dad was going to have a cow when he found out… Not just a cow, he was going to have a meltdown. All their lives, John had drummed into them that family was the most important thing in the world… Family was what kept them safe, what kept them going. If they stuck together, they would always be safe, always be strong. Nothing bad could happen if they stayed together. Somehow, Dean didn't think that Sam going off to college fitted very neatly into their Dad's philosophy.

What Dean didn't know was that John had once had dreams for his firstborn son too - dreams of college and sports, well-paid careers, first homes, children of his own - but those dreams had died many years ago along with Mary. The fire had not only consumed Dean's mother, but also Dean's future, and John grieved for his son's stolen life almost as much as for his wife's.

Seventeen years later, Dean found himself unintentionally spying on his little brother in a tired old motel room, somewhere in the middle of Nevada. Fear and hurt crystallizing like ice in the pit of his stomach as Sam plotted to leave them. Sam had never wanted this life and Dean knew it would be only a matter of time before he got old enough and stubborn enough to make the break. Guilt eating him alive as a secret part of him wished he could go with him.

But that would never happen.

Their Dad needed him, and Dean was nothing in this world if not loyal. He believed John's mantra wholeheartedly… Family was what mattered most, being there for the ones you love, protecting them with your life.

Never letting anyone down.

Not ever.

**-o-**

"What do you mean; you're driving out to find him, Sam?" John Winchester yelled down the phone at his youngest son. "You don't have a car!"

Sam swallowed anxiously but held his nerve. "I borrowed a car from someone at the motel."

The other end of the phone was silent for a moment, the Sam heard his Dad sigh. "By borrowed, I take it you mean that you stole it?"

"I'm gonna take it back, Dad. It's only a hire car anyway."

"Dammit Sam!" John yelled down the phone. "I don't need this right now. If you get caught -"

"I'm not going to get caught. No one saw me take it and I'll wipe it down when I'm done. Jesus, Dad, stop worrying about the damn car. Dean's in trouble, I know it."

There was silence for a moment then John spoke again. "Your brother's fine. He's always fine!"

Sam frowned. He wondered if their Dad ever really took any notice of him and Dean, if he and his brother wellbeing ever crossed their father's mind - if he even knew them at all.

"No Dad, he's not always fine. And he's not fine now. The last time I spoke to him was at just gone nine this morning, and it's nearly two now. I've been trying to call him the whole time and he hasn't picked up once. It's not like him, something's happened. _I_ know it and _you_ know it."

Barely a month before, Dean had almost been killed during a hunt. Angry spirits and rotted floorboards were never a good combination. Dean had been hefted into the air by the ghost, but instead of landing on his back in the middle of the floor in the bedroom of the old house in Louisiana, the floor had collapsed beneath him and Dean had fallen not only through the first floor, but through the ground floor too, landing amongst a pile of rotted wood in the basement. He had managed to walk away with nothing more than a headache, a beautiful array of rainbow coloured bruises and a three-inch wide piece of floorboard sticking out the back of his thigh - but it could have so easily been different. A few months before that, Dean had been hurt hunting a black dog in upstate New York; there had been stitches that time, lots and lots of stitches. Six month before then, he'd almost been drowned by a Jenny Greengills that had taken up residence in an abandoned swimming pool in San Diego – the list was endless and Dean's young body bore the scars, hard evidence of the fact that his brother was not always fine, no matter what kind of spin their Dad wanted to put on it.

John sighed heavily and reluctantly began to speak again. "Do you even know where you headed, Sam?"

Sam shook his head. "No."

"No, didn't think so." John replied. And despite his better judgment, he gave his youngest son the same directions as he had given his oldest. He was an hour, maybe two hours in the other direction to the way he had sent Dean. If he started heading back now, he would hopefully be back in time in case he was needed, which he hoped to Christ he wasn't. Part of him was still hoping that Dean had just got lost, or had decided to go sightseeing, or that his phone battery had died. All scenarios highly unlikely.

Dean was a good kid - an obedient, reliable kid. But most importantly, he was a thoughtful kid, and John knew he wouldn't deliberately do anything to freak out his little brother.

"I'm on my way back to the motel, Sam. You call me if you hear from him, okay?"

"Will do, Dad." Sam replied, and he hung up the phone and swung the Taurus back out onto the road.

**-o-**


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

**-o-**

Darkness came and went but the heat remained.

Heat that stole his strength - heat that robbed him of his ability to think straight, the ability to think himself out of the mess he was in, and Dean Winchester burned.

Sweat slicked his skin, blood and salt stinging his eyes and with the pain in his head and in his chest, it was hard to keep awake - hard to breath. The muscles in his legs and back had begun to cramp up and his body trembled uncontrollably.

The phone kept ringing, taunting him, splitting his head with its piercing ring. It was only just out of arm's reach but it may as well be on another planet. Dean couldn't see where it had landed when it had fallen from his hand and he just couldn't force himself to move to look for it.

He had made one brave attempt at sitting upright. Gritting his teeth and almost crying with pain, he'd tried to drag himself upwards and he'd almost made it too before the darkness collapsed back down on top of him, and he slipped back to the burning, blood slicked leather of the Impala's seats as everything went black for a while.

_Sam… Sam… Sammy… _

Dean murmured his brother's name, over and over like a mantra. Something to fend off the pain with, or was it just a wish? Want something bad enough and your wish will be granted. Wasn't that what was supposed to happen?

Dean had made so many wishes in his young life and not one of them had ever come true. If they had, he wouldn't be in this car now, dying in the middle of a desert. He'd be at college, maybe playing baseball or getting frisky with some hot chick under the bleachers, Sam would be at school hanging out with the other chess club geeks, or whatever club dorks like him liked to hang out in, and his Mom and Dad would be at home in Lawrence, living the happily ever after that was stolen from them the night the Yellow-Eyed-Demon came to visit.

Right now Dean's dearest, most heartfelt wish was for someone to come and help him, to save him. It wasn't often that Dean felt scared for himself, almost never in fact. Dean's concerns were usually saved for his little brother, for his Dad, for the people they were meant to be saving, but despite his growing delirium, he knew he was in big trouble and he _was_ frightened. He just wanted someone to come and get him - stop him burning… _Son-of-a-bitch, was he on fire?_ Was he burning up like his Mom had all those years ago?

Mary Winchester had died hard and Dean, who took after his Mother more than he would ever know, more than his Dad could bear sometimes, was following on the same road.

_God, Someone help me… Sammy, help me…_

His heart had begun pounding painfully in his chest, far too fast, uneven, irregular. Darkness was creeping into his vision once again. Darkness and flame.

"_Mom…"_ He breathed. _"Mom, help me… Please."_

He didn't want to die alone.

**-o-**

When Mary died, John thought he would never see his wife again - but he was wrong.

For the first few weeks after that terrible night, John hadn't been aware of anything other than the fact that she was gone - his beautiful Mary was dead, murdered in the most horrendous and bizarre and terrifying way, and for a while, John thought he'd actually lost his mind -

_She was on the ceiling... She was burning on the ceiling..._

And for the first few days after her death he had barely registered the fact he was still living, that he hadn't perished with his wife, let alone the fact that he had children that needed him - two beautiful little boys who needed their Daddy.

He'd sat for hours in the spare bedroom of his best friend's house, just staring into space while Sam slept in his makeshift cot and Dean lay silently in the single bed, just trying to work things out, trying to make sense of the insane thing he'd witnessed. And after a while - a long while - he got it. It all sank in and he was able to be a something resembling a Daddy again.

It took a long time before he could bring himself to smile at his children again. Every time he looked at Dean, he wanted to cry. But it took even longer for the kid to smile back at him.

For months after his mother's death, Dean had been pretty much silent - introverted, locked into himself. John had eventually taken the kid to see a doctor who had diagnosed some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder. Something that John had seen in the men he'd served with during his time in the forces. Some of them had never been the same again and he prayed that wouldn't happen to his son.

Dean had always been such a happy little boy, always singing and laughing, but after the fire… It was almost as if something inside the kid had died along with his mother. But six months after Mary's death, John had his wife returned to him, not by magic or witchcraft or any other supernatural means. Instead she had been resurrected in the face of their first-born son.

Dean was Mary reincarnate. There was no denying that.

The way his expressive green eyes looked at Sam, watched over his crib as he slept, the way he stroked the baby's face, the way he sang to him. The first time he'd heard Dean trying to sing _Stairway to heaven_ to his baby brother; John had stood in the doorway to the bedroom of the shabby little rented apartment and wept. Mary had always loved her music, always loved Zeppelin, and she had sung that song to Dean since the day he was born. And to hear his wife's favourite song sung again by such a tiny, sweet little voice had almost broken him.

Dean had forgotten all but a few of the words but he'd pretty much remembered the tune. Sammy had cooed happily in his crib, and when Dean had looked round to see why his Daddy was crying, it was Mary who had looked out from under the blonde fringe.

John had swept his son up into his arms, overwhelmed with love for the broken little boy and had sworn that he would always be there for him and his baby brother, promised that he would always keep them safe, that he would never ever let anything bad happen to either of them again, and that's when Dean had smiled at him for the first time in over six months. And despite the years and the miles and everything that had happened since that night, neither of them had ever really forgotten that promise.

And neither had the heart to say out loud how badly it had been broken.

**-o-**

Sam slammed on the brakes and was out of the Taurus, yelling his brother's name almost before the car had stopped moving.

He'd been trying to call Dean again for the millionth time and was still only getting his voicemail. He was sure he would be hearing the words, _"Hi, this is Dean. Leave a message after the beep"_ in his sleep that night, when he'd seen a dark shape up on the road ahead.

Sam had been driving full pelt for over an hour and had seen nothing other than rocks, dust, and cactus for the past forty odd miles and at first, he couldn't really believe that his eyes were not playing tricks on him - making him see what he wanted to see and not what was really there. Only as he got closer did he realize that it really was his brother's car and relief washed through him, only to be replaced by alarm the closer he got. The Impala was half-off the road and the windscreen looked broken.

"Dean?" Sam yelled again, running up to the car. The first thing he saw was the carcass of the deer laying a few feet in front of the Impala, his face creasing in a mixture of disgust and pity, then he saw the blood smeared across the smashed windscreen. Reaching the passenger door, he grabbed the handle, unprepared for how hot the metal was and he pulled his hand away, hissing in pain as the flesh on his palm almost sizzled.

"_Son-of-a-bitch!"_ Sam yelled, echoing his brother's latest favourite curse and blowing on his hand in an effort to cool it down. There was dirt and dust all over the car, the black paintwork stained orange and he could barely see through the side window. Couldn't yet see Dean slumped across the seat inside, and wrapping the fabric of his t-shirt around his hand, Sam pulled open the door.

The heat came out of the inside of the Impala like a furnace, heat and the awful smell of cooking blood, causing Sam to take a step back and turn his face away, and when he looked back his heart almost stopped in his chest.

"Oh, no… _No_!" He cried in dismay at the sight of his big brother. Dean was unmoving, slumped face down across the front seat of his car, clothes covered with blood, and shattered windscreen glass lay scattered all around him.

One of Dean's arms had slipped off the seat, his hand trailed limply on the floor of the passenger foot well, and less than a foot away on the floor, but obviously just out of his reach, sat his phone.

"Dean?" Sam murmured, brushing the broken glass away and kneeling on the seat beside him. "Hey, Dean? It's me, its Sam… Wake up, man."

His fingers stroked though Dean's sweat soaked hair and gently onto his throat, feeling for a pulse. To Sam it felt much too weak and much too fast but it was there and he could have wept with relief. Dean was hurt, but he was alive. Now all he had to do was figure out how he was going to get his brother some help.

Keeping his hand on the back of Dean's neck, feeling his brother's body trembling beneath his hand but needing to keep the contact, needing to know Dean was still with him; Sam pulled out his phone and called their Dad.

**-o-**


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

**-o-**

Dean heard a voice calling his name.

It was loud, urgent, and he struggled to open his eyes. It sounded like Sam but how could it be his little brother? Sam was back at the motel and he was - well, he didn't actually know where he was. Wherever the hell it was, it was too damn hot.

Sam's insistent voice came again. This time Dean was sure that it _was_ actually his annoying little brother shouting his name and he frowned.

_Stop yelling at me, Sam. My head freakin' hurts._

His lungs burned as he attempted to draw in enough breath to tell this to his brother and he coughed weakly, sending stabbing shards of agony through his brain. The darkness had returned and it hovered just around the edges of his vision, threatening to engulf him once more but he fought it. Nausea rolled in his stomach and he moaned as cramps ripped through the muscles in his limbs. It felt like he was being tied in knots and when they finally subsided after what seemed an eternity, his body thrummed and twitched like he'd been plugged into the mains.

He could hear Sam talking but it sounded like he was a million miles away, and forcing his eyes open, he struggled to focus on his brother's face. Sam was talking urgently to someone on the phone, he looked worried, frightened, and Dean wondered what was wrong.

"Sammy?" He gasped, trying to lick his dry, cracked lips; trying to swallow but his mouth felt like it was full of dust. He coughed weakly and moaned again as the pain in his head intensified to an almost unbearable level. Why did his head hurt so bad? Was he sick? _Hurt?_ He couldn't remember what had happened, couldn't remember where he was.

Blinking as sweat and blood stung his eyes, he watched Sam come back and kneel beside him, feeling his brother's hand stroke his hair before coming to rest on his shoulder. Sam was speaking to him again but he couldn't quite make out the words, he still sounded so far away, like he was speaking to him from a different room, a different planet even. Then closing his eyes, Dean gave a little ground and allowed the darkness settle in on him again for a while, knowing that now Sam was there, everything was going to be alright.

**-o-**

Max McGraw was his name, and hunting was his game.

He was also a man with a map. A map that John Winchester had been waiting a long time to find.

John had first heard about it a long time ago from his friend Bobby Singer. Bobby was a bookworm, as John called it, more into the research than the actual hunting – much like Sam was going to turn out to be, John suspected. But Bobby was a good man and a good friend and he had helped John and his boys out many times over the years. He trusted him to come up with the goods and that's just what he had done.

Max McGraw was also a good man by all accounts, but a man who kept to himself to himself. What some would call a lone Wolf. He'd had comrades in the past, hunting partners… Hell, he'd had a family once but that had been a long time ago and McGraw didn't much like to talk about the old days. What was gone was gone and there wasn't anything that could bring it back, he was fond of saying to anyone willing to listen, which was increasingly just his trusty old sheepdog, Concord. There weren't many folks living this far out into the desert anymore.

He'd been expecting Dean to show up and collect the map but had been surprised by how young the boy was when he'd knocked on the porch door. McGraw knew John Winchester had sons out on the road with him but he hadn't realized that they were barely more than kids and after seeing the weariness in Dean's eyes, he wondered vaguely what kind of life they'd had growing up. The kid wore the look of pure bred, cocksure hunter on his handsome young face, but his uneasy demeanour betrayed him.

McGraw hadn't known the kid for more than five minutes but he could see twenty-one years of anger, hurt and longing in those striking green eyes as plain as the nose on his face.

Dean was the oldest brother by all accounts, which would make the other brother, Sam, barely more than a child, and McGraw wondered to himself what a toll life on the road with John Winchester had taken on that boy too.

The old hunter had invited Dean in for a drink and a sit down, but the kid had refused politely, saying how he needed to get the map back to his Dad as soon as possible.

"I've had that Map for the last ten years, young Winchester. I'm sure your Daddy can wait another half an hour." McGraw had told Dean and Dean had smiled, transforming his tired features.

"Yeah, I know." Dean had replied taking the map and clutching it tightly in his hands like his life depended on it. "But I need to get back. My brother Sammy is on his own and he's bored. He gets up to mischief when he's bored and I need to be there to keep him out of trouble. You know what kids are like."

McGraw had nodded. The boy spoke about his kid brother like he was his _son _instead of his sibling, and the old hunter suspected this was pretty close to how it was. Winchester was probably out working jobs a lot of the time and McGraw imagined that Dean had pretty much been left holding the baby for most of his young life.

"You sure I can't tempt you with a nice cold beer?" McGraw had tried once more. "Pretty hot out there and I don't suppose that big old muscle car of yours has much in the way of Air-Con? I had an old Chevy, years ago. Air con was like an asthmatic sitting in the dashboard blowing at you through a straw."

Dean had smiled again, almost laughed, and replied with a "Dude, its not even nine-thirty am." He couldn't be swayed, not even with though thoughts of a nice cold brew. Instead he had thanked the old hunter and headed back, map in hand, out to the porch, stopping momentarily to give Concord's head a quick rub. The old dog watched with rheumy eyes as the young man got into his Daddy's old car and drove off back into the desert.

"Damn." McGraw had said to the dog, scratching him between the ears. "John Winchester has that boy well trained. Poor kid." And he went back into his house to get himself that nice cold beer… He didn't care that it was only nine in the morning.

**-o-**

"He's hurt, Dad. I found the car, it's all busted up. He hit a deer and he's hurt. I can't get him to wake up and he's so hot and he's shaking really bad and there blood all over the seat." Sam yelled down the phone. "I don't know what to do, Dad. I don't know what to do."

"Sam, calm down!" John replied from the other end of the phone. He had been steeling himself for this call ever since he turned his truck round, driving the past fifty miles with a ball of dread sitting in his gut. Sam had been right and he silently cursed himself. Why did he do that? Why did he always think things were always going to be okay with his boys? Was it just that he couldn't face the thought that anything bad would happen to them? If he didn't allow that possibility into his head, then it couldn't happen? _Some Father you are, John! _He thought to himself_. You Goddamn asshole!_

"Calm down?" Sam yelled back down the phone, gripping Dean's shoulder tightly. He could feel his brother's body trembling under his hand, he felt like he was shivering, but heat was pouring from him like a furnace. He was really hurt this time - dying maybe. How could he calm down? "I can't wake him up. Dad, I think he's - he's… What should I do?"

Sam heard John sigh heavily, then the line went quiet again and for a horrible moment, he thought his Father had hung up on him.

"_Dad_?"

John had pulled his truck to stop. His heart pounding in his chest and his hands had begun to shake so much he was scared he might drop the phone. He had sent Dean out and now his son was hurt. Really, badly hurt by the sounds of it, and he wasn't there… No-one would be there if Sam hadn't taken it upon himself to go after him. If it was down to him, Dean would be out in the middle of the desert, alone, and it would be his fault. _Oh God, I'm sorry Kiddo. Please be okay? I'm so sorry…_

He closed his eyes, trying to think. Dean had hit a deer; the boy hardly ever wore a seatbelt so he probably had chest injuries, probably smacked his head against the windscreen - knocked himself out and then lay unconscious in the baking sun for hours. He was probably heat-stroked and John knew from experience how bad that could be.

"Yeah, Son. I'm sorry. I'm here" John replied, scrubbing a calloused hand down his face. "Does anything look broken? Is he lying funny? Where's he bleeding from?"

"What?" Sam yelled. "Dad, just come and find us. I don't know what to do."

John recognized the panic growing in his youngest son's voice and knew he couldn't let it take hold. He needed the kid to focus. If Dean was going to have any chance, he needed Sammy to be calm. "Sam. You listen to me now, Son." He said firmly.

"Dad, please. Just come and find us. Please?"

"Sammy, listen to me."

"No Dad, just drive here. Come and find us…"

"Samuel Winchester, you mind me now, Son." John replied in his best Drill Sergeant voice. Hating having to speak to his frightened teenager like that but he had to. Had to make Sam concentrate on what he was saying. "Do as you are told or I swear your ass will be grass. You understand me, boy?"

Sam immediately stopped his frantic pacing and replied with an automatic, "Yes Sir." Mind immediately focused, panic dropping away to be dealt with later like a good little soldier. John had trained both his sons well.

"Now you tell me, Sam. Where is Dean bleeding from?" John asked him again, his tone softer. And this time Sam heard him and did what he was told.

Kneeling inside the car, Sam looked over his brother's prone body. "It's just his head, Dad. He had a cut on his head but no other blood that I can see. I can't tell if anything is broken but it looks like he tried to move earlier. There are bloody hand prints on the door and window."

"And you can't wake him up at all?"

Sam brushed Dean's sweat soaked hair from his forehead and shook his shoulder gently, calling his name. A barely audible moan escaped Dean's lips, his brow creasing in pain, but his eyes stayed tightly shut. "When I first got here, I think he opened his eyes for a moment but he's out now, Dad." Sam told his father down the phone. "He looks awful. He's so pale… His breathing sounds bad."

John was quiet on the end of the phone for a moment then he spoke again. "Is the Impala drivable?"

Sam looked up at the smashed window. There was no way he would be able to see through the glass and Sam told John no.

"Can you lift him, Sam? Can you get him out of the Impala and into your car?"

Sam frowned. "I thought you weren't supposed to move people when they are hurt, in case they have broken necks or backs."

John sighed. Hating what he was about to say and hating even more that it was true. "Sammy… If he's got heatstroke and you don't get him out of there, he's going to die. We can worry about broken bones later. Now can you get him into your car?"

"Yeah, I can lift him. I'm bigger than him now, remember?"

John smiled, thinking back at how pissed Dean had been when Sam finally overtook him during his last growth spurt. Not that Dean was short at a little over 6ft, but Sam was going to be a giant - taller than both of them when he finally stopped growing.

"Sam. Listen to what I'm going to say. Get your brother into the back of your car; take off his shirt, boots, socks… You need to get his temperature down. Does the car you took have Air-Con?"

"Um, yeah?" Sam replied.

"Good. Put that on full blast. Do you have any water with you?"

Sam ran to the Taurus. There was half a small bottle on the floor of the passenger seat, and then he ran back to the Impala. The canteen that Dean always carried was in the same place. He shook it and frowned. That sounded only half-full as well. "We have some water, not much. You want to me to see if I can make him drink it?"

"No Sam, strip him off and then pour it over him. You need to get his temperature down. Can you do that, Son?"

"Yes Sir. I can do that."

"Good. Then drive back to the motel as fast as you can. I'll meet you there."

Sam replied with another "Yes Sir" and was about to hang up when John spoke again. And Sam was stuck by how old he sounded… Old, tired and worried.

"Sammy. I'm sorry. You're a good kid. You bring your brother home now, Son. I'm counting on you."

"Yes sir…" Sam replied quietly, and hung up the phone.

**-o-**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Right then. A huge thank you to my brand new BFF, Letting the rain in for her constant help, amusement, and encouragement. You Rock, Bubbalicious! **_

_**The middle part of this chapter refers to something bad that happened to Dean at school when he was 12. If you are curious to know what it was then you need to read the story, 'There's something he should be saying' by Letting the rain in and all will be revealed.**_

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**Six**

**-o-**

Dean cracked open his eyes to find himself looking up at the white vinyl ceiling of a strange car. It wasn't the Impala, he knew his baby like the back of his hand. It wasn't his Dad's ride either. He'd been laid out hurt in the back seat of that truck a few times and was more than familiar with the grey stitched fabric. So whose car was he in? And why the hell was he lying shirtless and barefoot on the back seat.

He either drove or rode in front with their Dad, and Sam sat in the back. Dean had earned the right to right to ride shotgun having been born first. It was just the way the world worked. Sam had learned this lesson years ago with the aid of a few well placed elbows and the occasional full nelson arm-lock and didn't even bother to try to rebel against it any more. The kid was long since resigned to the fact that until he got his own car, then the back seat was where he belonged. Dean had given up a lot in his life for Sam, shared everything he'd ever had, even gone without food so Sam wouldn't have to and would happily lay down his life for his nerdy, sulky little brother, but he would never give up his right to ride shotgun. Never.

Blinking to try and clear his strangely misty vision, Dean tried to raise his head to see just where the hell he was. As he did, a flash of pain arced through his brain and sank down through his body, followed by a fiery comet-tail burst of heat, noise, and light. Then almost as soon as it had appeared, it was gone again and Dean went back to drifting along peacefully in the foggy quiet of the back seat of the unfamiliar white car.

"_Dean! Wake up, Bro... Please, Dean. Talk to me"._

"Sam?" He murmured. His voice sounded strange in his own ears, thick and broken like he had the flu or something and he chided himself as he began to cough.

_Idiot._

Of course it wasn't Sam. Sam had left. Left them. Left _him. _The little bastard had gone. How the hell was he going to tell Dad? He was going to go ballistic - and that was the understatement of the year. As Jules from Pulp Fiction had said so eloquently, his Dad was going to be a mushroom cloud laying mutha. John Winchester was gonna be the Guns of the Navarrone and guess who was going to get the business end of those guns.

Dean blinked. There was something dark hovering beside him and he couldn't quite make it out. It was on the edge of his vision, waiting for him like a half-remembered dream. For a second he could have sworn he saw a flash of yellow but then the darkness spread out, filling the car like it was being submerged in hot black tar and a moment later, he was drowning in it.

**-o-**

Dean was fourteen years old the first time he experienced the full force of his Dad's anger, and it was an experience he hadn't wanted to re-live in a hurry.

The brothers had been enrolled at the same school, Elmore Junior High, for almost five months, a record length of time for the Winchester boys. Sam had been doing really well, had even made some friends, Dean had managed to make it to most classes most weeks and John had been unwilling to move on until they really had to, enjoying the peace and normality for a while. They were in a shabby little rented apartment, but it was clean and in a seemingly decent neighbourhood.

Things on the hunting front had been pretty quiet too. John had been on few jobs, the Yellow-Eyed-Demon's trail having gone decidedly cold, but the jobs were nothing that he couldn't handle with or without Dean's help in a single night and for once in their lives, all seemed quite on the western front. That was until the Winchesters had their first run-in with social services.

There was a gym coach at Elmore High by the name of Mr Gilliam. He was an ex-army PT instructor and took no prisoners. He also didn't take well to sick notes. Especially when they were clearly written by his students.

Dean had been a fit, athletic, competitive kid. Good at sports, especially baseball, but he missed too many classes, often with no good excuse. Coach Gilliam had tried to bring this up with the boy's Dad at parent's evening, but John Winchester had been a no-show, just like his son. And when Dean turned up for gym class limping theatrically, with a note that he had clearly written himself, it was the last straw.

Dean seemed to be a good kid, but Gilliam wasn't going to let him play him for a fool any longer and ripping up the note in front of him, he grabbed Dean's arm and marched him out of the locker room. The kid flinched away from him and for a moment he looked terrified, then when they stopped in the corridor and Gilliam let go of him, the boy's usual inscrutable, slightly defiant expression that always reminded Gilliam of a little Jarhead returned. He knew the boy's Father had been a marine, Dean had told him this after recognising the coach's tattoos as military ink, and it seemed like the boy took after his Dad in more ways than just tardiness. But now Dean stared down at his feet like the most amazing thing had just appeared on the end of his sneakers.

Gilliam was impressed. Most of the kids were scared stiff of him, their bottom lips began to tremble at mere thought of him chastising them, but Dean Winchester had the best poker-face the coach had ever seen. He'd need to wear shades though if he was ever going to make any money out of that talent. It was only when you looked the boy directly in the eye could you see that there was something complicated going on in that tough little head of his.

"Do you think I came down in the last shower, Dean?" Gilliam had asked the boy and Dean looked up at him and shook his head.

"No, Sir."

"So why are you are you trying to get out of my class again with some crummy note that you wrote yourself, Son?"

Dean swallowed. Coach Gilliam spoke almost exactly the way his Dad spoke and it stopped his smart mouth dead in its tracks.

"Now either you tell me the real reason you want to be excluded from gym today, Dean, or you get your butt changed and get it out into that gymnasium in the next two minutes because "_My son has a twisted knee_" isn't going to cut it this time."

Dean, who even at the age of fourteen was a master of bluffing, but not so great at the out and out barefaced lie yet had faltered. It was usually Sam who thought up the excuses. Dean just forged the notes and acted them out with every ounce of charm that he could muster. However, charm didn't work on Gilliam, any more than crocodile tears did and Dean knew he was going to be in trouble. Especially when Gilliam started his stopwatch, folded his arms and looked down at the boy expectantly.

"It _is_ my knee, Coach." Dean replied, deciding that the old _you remember what it's like to be a kid _approach would be the best way to go under the circumstances. Gilliam wasn't really giving him much time to think. "Me and my little brother, Sam. We were wrestling last night and he kind of bent my leg the wrong way. You know my brother, Sam. He's all arms and legs. He doesn't know his own strength yet…"

"You have one minute now, Dean." Gilliam replied softly and Dean swallowed nervously. This wasn't going to plan at all. Why was the guy riding him so hard? He'd almost started to like him, which after the awful thing that very nearly happened to him three years ago with his sicko baseball coach at a previous school was pretty surprising, even to Dean.

The oldest Winchester brother shifted from one foot to the other. There was no way out of this. Gilliam wasn't going to accept the note and he couldn't tell him the real reason he couldn't do gym class. The only other option was to walk away, which would get him a big fat detention. Then the school would call his Dad and things would get decidedly messy.

Whichever way he looked at it, he was screwed. The huge bite wound in his side that he and Sammy had tried so hard to fix the night before without their Dad finding out was still bruised and bleeding. Plus painful didn't really begin to describe it, and he was sure that doing any form of sports was going to be a very bad idea.

"Time's up, Dean." Gilliam told the boy and Dean sighed reluctantly, knowing he was screwed. He looked up into the coach's face, hoping to find a shred of pity or understanding, but although the guy sounded like his Dad, he wasn't him.

"I want to see you in that gymnasium in two minutes, Dean."

"Yes Sir." Dean replied and walked back into the locker room like a condemned man to the gallows as his sniggering class mates began making their way out past him.

Dean had only been hunting seriously with his Dad for the best part of a year, and it was always on the condition that he did exactly what John said. And Dean did try… He really did. He was the obedient son, after all. But things didn't always go to plan and the straight forward salt n' burn while John had been off wrestling an angry spirit had turned into a very messy get bitten n' scream with the black dog that Dean had somehow managed to free from guarding the grave.

John had come back, slightly worse for wear himself, just after Dean had fought the thing off and managed to pour the lighter fuel and salt into the open coffin, throwing in a whole box of matches, followed by the whole can of gas just to make sure. He hadn't noticed his son's injury and when he'd asked Dean if he was ok, Dean had lied as always and told him yes. If his Dad knew he was hurt, he would be less likely to let him hunt with him in the future, and Dean couldn't stand that thought. Not only was hunting the only time he got to spend any real quality time with his Dad, it was the only time he felt he was doing something to make him proud of him and he wouldn't give that up for the world, even if it was a terrifying job and the things he had seen would cause most normal teenagers to lay awake in their beds at night for a month.

After making sure no-one else was around and quickly getting changed, Dean checked the dressing that Sam had carefully applied to the wound the night before in the bathroom of their apartment as their Dad cleaned their weapons in the kitchen. Sam had gone big eyed and white when Dean had showed him the injury and he had wanted to tell, but Dean threatened him with violence and bribed and blackmailed him until he was sure that his brother would keep quiet, and much to Dean's surprise, he had.

The big white dressing was still stuck down firmly over his left side with half a roll of surgical tape. It was pretty well done considering Sam was only ten. Dean was just glad it didn't seem to need stitches. Sam was still learning how to do them and had made a mess of many a dead chicken, trying to stitch it back together as practise before they roasted it and ate it for dinner.

Sucking down the bad feeling he had about this, Dean walked out into the gym. Hoping against hope that they were just going to be playing dodge ball or something. Dean thought he could just get hit and sit out and everything would be ok, but Gilliam's favourite game was a nasty little number called British Bulldog and the minute he walked in, Gilliam declared Dean the Bulldog and half his class descended upon him.

The shocked coach sent one of Dean's classmates off to call 911 a few minutes after Dean didn't get up again, and feeling guilty as hell, he dismissed the class and sat with the sobbing, bleeding, semi-conscious teenager until the ambulance arrived. John was called soon after that and social services were called by the concerned young doctor in the ER an hour after that. The ragged bite wound on his side was far from the only injury that Dean had been sporting at the time.

John had been forced to smuggle Dean out of the hospital and that had been the end of their period of happy normality. The very next night they were holed up at Bobby's house and John had yelled at Dean almost the whole time since leaving the hospital, only stopping when Dean had eventually broken down and begun to cry again, Sam had threatened to run away and Bobby had been forced to step in and calm everyone down.

Dean understood why his dad was furious. If he'd only told him about the injury, if he hadn't lied to him, lied to his teacher and tried to cover it up, they would still be at the apartment, still be able to go back to school…

"You're an idiot, Dean." John had yelled at his injured son. Pacing back and forth like a caged animal. "What were you thinking? Why in God's name did you hide an injury from me?"

But Dean didn't answer. He couldn't.

He was just going to have to hide this hurt as well and man, was this one going to fester.

**-o-**

John burst through the door as soon as he heard the car screech to a halt outside the motel room. A few times he'd been tempted to drive out to see if he could intercept Sammy on the way back, but he might have missed them and he knew he couldn't risk that. Instead, he'd paced the room, chewing his fingernails down to the quick, waiting for Sam to bring Dean home to safety.

Sam climbed out of the driver's seat as John reached the car. "How is he, Sammy? How's he doing?"

"I don't know… I drove as fast as I could!" Sam replied. "He hasn't woken up. I think he said my name a few miles back, but I'm not sure."

Sam looked scared stiff, his bottom lip trembled and he seemed about to burst into tears at any moment. John patted the kid on the shoulder in a small gesture of reassurance. It wasn't much, but right then, it was all he had to give. Then he pulled open the back door of the car and saw the state of his eldest son for the first time.

Sam had done as he was told and stripped off his brother's heavy flannel over-shirt, t-shirt and boots and Dean was lying unconscious in just his jeans across the back seat. Dried blood caked the left half of his face, his hands, his arms and a steering-wheel shaped bruise had appeared dark and angry across his bare chest. Sam watched helplessly as his Dad reached into the car and sliding Dean out by the legs, he pulled him gently up into his arms, grimacing at the heat radiating off his skin. Dean's head rested against his chest and John frowned, hearing the rattle in his son's shallow, rapid breathing.

Dean let out a broken little moan, brow creasing in pain and his green eyes opened briefly, glassy and unfocused before they rolled back into his head.

_He shouldn't be this hot_, John thought to himself, trying to keep the fear from showing in his eyes for Sammy's sake. The kid looked like he was about to drop dead from fright himself. Then his gaze returned to Dean's blood covered face. _What have you done to yourself, Kiddo?_

Sighing heavily, John gently carried his injured son into the motel room with Sam following close behind.

"Strip the covers off his bed, Sammy." He said through gritted teeth. Dean was a dead weight and John wasn't as young as he used to be. At just over 6ft tall and built of solid muscle, the kid was too heavy to be carried far, and as soon as Sam had pulled the covers off, he laid Dean carefully down on the fresh sheets. His eyes quickly roamed Dean's body, scanning for injuries, any hurts he hadn't noticed before, lingering on his injured son's face for a moment. Although Dean was with him every single day, it was as if John hadn't really seen him for a long, long time.

Dean was covered in his own blood, scratched, cut, and bruised, but lost in unconsciousness, he looked just like a little boy again, the same little boy that used to fall asleep in his arms before Mary died and John's heart leapt into his throat, constricting painfully – choking him. Sometime it caught him off guard just how much he loved his boys. How was it possible to love someone that much and not go mad at the thought of losing them?

_Please be okay, kiddo. Please… _

Tearing his eyes away from his son's face, John began stripping off the rest of the boy's clothes, leaving him in only his boxers and he turned to look at Sam, his face hard-set and grim. "I need you to get rid of that car now, while I help your brother."

Sam seemed not to hear John at first and he sat on the edge of Dean's bed as John went into the bathroom and began to fill the sink with cold water. He couldn't tear his eyes off his brother. He was so pale, lips cracked, and the purple-black shadows that blossomed under Dean's eyes every time he got really sick stuck out starkly against the greyness of his skin. Sam could almost feel the heat radiating off him in dry waves and when he laid a hand on Dean's arm, he could feel him trembling and shivering beneath his touch like an electrical current was zipping though his body.

"Sam!" John yelled, his voice echoing in the small tiled room, snapping Sam's attention away from his brother. "Get rid of that car, wipe it down and lose it somewhere."

Sam glanced up at his Father, only half hearing him. "I'll do it later; I want to stay with him, Dad." Then suddenly he was being roughly dragged up by the arm, and emitting a small yelp of surprise, the teenager found himself up against the wall, nose to nose with his Father.

"Sam, you get rid of that Taurus now, or I swear, I will do something we'll both regret!" John ground out, his voice low and hard. "Your brother is dying! I need to help him and I can't be worrying that the cops are going to turn up."

John had never spoken to Sam like that before and the teenager tried to squirm away. He opened his mouth to argue, to defend himself, then closed it when he realised with growing horror that his Dad, the great John Winchester, ex-Marine and Demon-hunter extraordinaire, was close to tears.

"Sammy, please…" John whispered desperately, letting the boy go and stepping away. "Just for once in your life, please just do as I say."

Sam swallowed, heart pounding in his chest and he nodded, blinking back the tears that had begun to well up in his eyes. A second later he had disappeared out the motel door.

John stayed where he was for a moment, his own heart pounding in time with his head until he heard the water begin to overflow in the bathroom sink, and taking a steadying breath, he got moving. Grabbing the top sheet of Dean's bed from the floor, John turned off the tap and submerged it into the water until it was soaked through. Then wringing it out a little, he went quickly back to Dean and laid the wet sheet over the boy's roasting body and then he dragged over the fan from the corner of the room and switched it on, blasting Dean with cold air. He had to get the kid's temperature down before it killed him.

John had learned to deal with heat stroke in the Corps, along with malaria, gunshot wounds, and a multitude of other illnesses and injuries and he knew it wasn't pretty. People died from heat stroke and they had died hard. He wasn't going to let that happen to his son.

Dean moaned as the cold from the wet sheet sank into his body, his muscles contracting violently, and the shivering that had begun long before Sam had found him intensified ten fold.

"No, Dean! Don't do that, Kiddo… Please." John cried in dismay, kneeling on the bed and peering anxiously down at his son. "Don't you do that!"

His constant trembling had become brutal quaking, and John watched with dread, knowing what was coming and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. Dean's bare toes curled under his feet and arching his back, bunching his fists into the sheet, Dean began to convulse.

**-o-**


	7. Chapter 7

_**Okay, I really want to just say a big thank you to everyone who has read this little story of mine and taken the time to review. I really appreciate it. It really makes it all worthwhile. **_

_**Also, I have slightly edited the last 6 chapters so if you haven't read them for a while, you might fancy having another read though. No big changes, but I can't help but fiddle with it.**_

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**Seven**

**-o-**

In his 17 years on this planet, Sam had spent a lot of time wondering about what happened when you died. John had raised his sons to be Christians, in a roundabout sort of way. They never went to church or anything, but John believed in God, he believed in Heaven and Hell. He had seen pure evil with his own eyes and by that reasoning, how could there not be pure goodness?

Sam shared this view – it made sense to him, it was logical, simple Ying and Yang – if there was a black, there had to be a white. If there were Demons, there had to be a Devil, and if there was a Devil, there had to be a God.

Dean, having a more agnostic nature, was not so sure.

When it came to hunting, for Dean, there was a very definite line. Things were evil or they weren't – and if something was evil, then he was going to try his damndest to kill it. It was just the rest of his life that had that line blurred into lots of shades of really dark grey. The world for Dean Winchester was full of lots of necessary badness - lying, stealing, fighting, and killing. He had done it all - done it for a good reason, but he'd still done it, and although he didn't spend as much time as Sam did, worrying about how living the life of a hunter was doing irreparable to his soul, he had thought about where you ended up when you died.

He knew for a fact that Demons existed, knew that there were ghost and spirits, angry, restless or otherwise, he had seen them with his own eyes, and dispatched them with his own hands, so by that reckoning, there had to be a Hell of sorts, and there had to be some sort of afterlife.

Dean knew he was no saint, was far from it, but he also knew without a doubt that he was a good person. He helped people, he _saved_ people, and he had sacrificed pretty much everything he'd ever had in order to do it and not complained, not _once_. Surely that counted for something? If there was a Heaven, and to Dean, that was a pretty big if, then surely he deserved to go there?

If there was a God, surely he should be looking out for the Winchesters?

When they were little, Sam had gone through a phase of asking Dad where their Mom was and John had always told him Heaven. Sam, being Sam, had never though this was a good enough explanation. He wanted to know exactly where Heaven was and what it was like there and whether they would ever get to go one day.

John, being John, had given Sam the fluffy white cloud Sunday school version of Heaven and told him that their Mom was waiting up there for them all, and one day when they died, they would go to be with her. And Dean, being Dean, had wanted nothing more for this to be true, but it just didn't fit.

The Yellow-Eyed-Demon had taken his Mom, the fire had killed her, and that didn't sound much like a route to the Pearly Gates to him. Dean had a sneaking suspicion that none of them were going to end up in Heaven, that even though they deserved to go, he didn't think God was taking much notice of this fact, and as he burned in agony in the darkness, Dean had a bad feeling that he was about to be proved right.

**-o-**

John Winchester had been scared a lot in his life.

He wasn't ashamed of this fact. The ability to feel the fear and do something anyway was part of being a man. Something that had been drilled into him many times over the years.

The first time he'd seen action, John had been terrified. When he stood waiting for a very late Mary to turn up to the church to marry him, he'd been even more terrified, but up until the night his wife was murdered, the most frightened John had ever been was the night his first son was born.

He remembered that night well, the year's first flurry of snow had begun to fall and the roads had been icy on the drive to the hospital. The baby hadn't been due for a couple of weeks and Mary had been worried. From the first contraction, she had known something was wrong.

John had tried to put his wife's mind to rest but he was worried enough for the both of them already and had been for the past six months. When Mary had first told him they were expecting, John had been elated - walking on air for days, but having a baby was such an abstract concept to him at that point in his life and nine months had seemed a very long time. But as Mary got bigger and they began to fix up the spare room of their house in Lawrence as a nursery, as they went out shopping for a crib and changing mats and tiny little outfits, the reality of being a father slowly dawned on him, and to Mary's great amusement, the normally stoic, unshakable ex-marine had become a clucking mother hen.

Carrying his wife into the ER, John had not left Mary's side that night. Was with her when her waters broke, was with her when the doctor frowned and told her the baby was in distress, that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, was with her when they wheeled her into the Operating Room for the emergency caesarean section. He had clutched her hand when the nurses rushed the silent baby away and sobbed with her when what seemed to be an eternity later, their baby son cried for the first time. Now, as John knelt on the lumpy bed of a shabby Arizona motel room nearly 22 years later, waiting for some sign that his son was going to be okay - that he was going to live - that same fear consumed him.

**-o-**

"Dean, open your eyes, Son." John frantically yelled at his oldest child. "Open em up, now."

The convulsion had frightened the hell out of him, and he prayed it would just be the one time. Sam had suffered febrile convulsions when he was a baby; a particularly high fever when he was five months old had left him fitting in his cot, scaring the crap out of him and Mary. John had rushed Sam to the ER only to be reassured by a sympathetic nurse that these things happen to babies sometimes and it was nothing to really worry about. Once they got the child's temperature down, they were usually fine. John knew the same didn't apply to adults though. Dean was dying before his eyes and he knew it was time for drastic measures. Even if he did call 911 for an ambulance, it would take a long time to get there, longer than Dean had.

"Come on, Kiddo. Wake up!" John yelled again, but Dean remained unresponsive, even when he'd soaked another sheet in cold water and draped it over him… Even when he'd slapped the kid on the cheek harder than he should have, leaving a red mark on his pale skin. Dean didn't even flinch.

Sighing heavily, John got to his feet, unwilling to leave Dean alone for even a moment, not wanting to let him out of his sight. Part of him wishing Sam would hurry back and part of him glad that he had sent him away. He would be freaking out and John just couldn't deal with Sam's panic-stricken yammering now. He needed room to think, needed to keep a clear head. Dean's life depended on it.

The boys were so close it worried him sometimes; John knew Dean would throw himself into the pit for Sam without a moment's hesitation and that his love for his little brother sometimes made Dean take risks that he shouldn't. John had seen him do it with his own eyes, seen Dean step between Sam and what ever was trying to do damage to him, getting himself hurt in the process. It made his heart swell with love and pride but he would never tell this to his eldest, he relied on Dean to protect Sam, to look after him to be there for him because sometime, a lot of the time, he just couldn't, but he couldn't allow Dean to think that sacrificing himself for Sam was something he expected of him. He wanted both his sons to live long healthy lives. Wanted it more than anything else in the world, even if Sam did think all he cared about was finding the Yellow-Eyed-Demon.

He was willing to let the kid think that, Sam was angry at him a lot of the time but he was okay with that. John was angry too - had been for a long time. It kept him sharp, kept him in the game. As far as John Winchester was concerned, anger was something positive, something to be embraced, something to add to the arsenal along with the Ka-bar knives and the Heckler & Koch sniper rifle.

Deciding that Dean would be ok to be left for a moment, John quickly went back into the bathroom and began running a bath, turning the taps on full, filling the tub with lukewarm water. When it was about half full, he turned off the taps and went back to his son's bedside.

"Hey, kiddo. How you doing?" John asked Dean loudly, hoping he could hear him, hoping to elicit some response, but Dean's eyes remained closed, his blooded forehead creased with pain, quick, shallow breath escaping noisily from his cracked lips. John carried on anyway, sure that on some level, Dean could hear him.

"I'm gonna put you in the tub now, Dean. Okay?... I know I haven't given you a bath since you were six years old, but you're still my little boy, Dean, and I'm gonna make this okay. You just gotta hang on. Just hang on, and let me make this better."

Kneeling on the bed, John pulled the wet sheets off Dean's shaking body and putting an arm under his knees and the other round his back, John gritted his teeth and hefted Dean up against his chest. Making his way quickly across the motel room to the bathroom, John glanced down at Dean's face - his head had lolled back and John could see the whites of his son's eyes under the long dark lashes that reminded him so much of Mary's.

When they reached the cramped little bathroom, John bent forwards and carefully lowered his son into the half-filled tub, his back protesting at the strain of Dean's weight. Then holding Dean under the arm to make sure he didn't slip down under the water, John leant over and turned on the cold tap, letting a stream of cold water into the tub. He needed to get Dean's temperature down but dumping a heat stroked casualty in an ice bath was never a good idea. What he was doing now was dangerous enough and Dean couldn't afford another convulsion. Instead, he would let the water temperature gradually drop, hopefully taking his temperature down with it, and grabbing a flannel from the side, John gently began to clean some of the blood from Dean's face as his son lay motionless apart from the shivering and trembling that wracked through every muscle of his body.

There were dozens of little nicks and scratches on Dean's ashen face, which, John assumed, were from the broken glass of the windshield and he winced at the deep gash just below Dean's hairline. It was a clean cut but there was a huge lump underneath and it had bled a lot. The wound was going to need some stitches to close it properly, but that was the least of Dean's worries. Stitches could wait. There were huge bruises on both his knees and a crescent of bruising on his chest that was rapidly darkening to a spectacular reddy purple and John frowned. Dean had suffered busted ribs before, as had he, and though it was never fun, it wasn't life threatening either and if John couldn't get Dean's temperature down, none of the other injuries were going to matter. Dean would be dead.

"Please be ok, Kiddo. I can't lose you. I can't." John murmured, peering into his son's face, desperately searching for some sign that he was going to be okay, but Dean's eyes remained closed, long dark lashes fanning out and leaving a shadow on his pallid cheek, and John sighed heavily and shook his head. Leaning forward, he rested his forehead against Dean's and stayed like that for a while, not even hearing the door to their room open as Sam returned.

**-o-**


	8. Chapter 8

**Eight**

**-o-**

One of Dean's most precious memories from his previous life - his blissful, carefree, first four years - was bath time with his mom. He'd _loved _bath time. Some kids screamed and cried, but not Dean. Mary had literally had to drag him out of the tub, little fingers wrinkled like prunes and smelling like Matey bubble bath and Johnson's and Johnson's No More Tears shampoo. And he'd never known that Mary had loved bath time as much as he had. But then there was so much he didn't know about his mother, so much Dean would never know.

Sometimes John had bathed him, especially after Sam was born as the new baby took up so much of Mary's time, but it had always been more fun with Mom. She didn't mind when Dean splashed her and she didn't rub quite so hard with the washcloth. Daddy had been fun for other things, like play fights and fort building and camping out in the back yard, but Mommy had been best for bath time.

"_Wake up, Kiddo, come on Dean. Wake up…"_

"_Mom?"_ Dean murmured, his voice cracked and broken and his throat so dry he almost choked on the words. Someone was holding him - he was in a bath, the water icy on his hot skin, and someone was holding him under his arm, running a washcloth down his chest, across his face -

"_It's me, Dean. It's Dad. Open your eyes, Son. Come on, Kiddo - Open em…"_

Of course it was Dad. Mom was gone. Mom had burned up. _Mom was dead… _

His brow creased, the washcloth scratching his sore skin - familiar, calloused hands pressing against his chest, making him hiss with pain. "Don't." he gasped, not sure if he'd actually spoken the words out loud or not. Everything was fuzzy, it was hard to think straight, and he tried to retreat back into the dark.

"_Dean! Open your goddamn eyes and look at me!" _

Dean struggled to do as he was told, but his lids felt glued shut. Everything hurt - his skin was burning, live with pins and needles, his head thumped in time with his heartbeat. Even the effort of drawing breath was exhausting. Why did Dad have to shout all the time? He never used to shout, not when he was a little kid, not when Mom was alive.

Everything had been better when Mom was alive.

**-o-**

Sam sat outside the office of the school's guidance councillor, foot tapping nervously, college applications clutched tightly in his hand. Knowing that if his Father found out where he was, he would kill him. There would be no fighting, no screaming matches – Dad would literally kill him and Dean wouldn't be able to stop him. Hell, his brother might even help. And even though he knew his Dad was out on a job with Dean, miles away and seriously unlikely to turn up at the school, his heart was still pounding. It was guilt pure and simple, but he wasn't going to let it stop him. This was probably the most selfish thing he had ever done but he didn't care.

Sam had a plan and he was going to stick to it, and once Sam had made up his mind to do something, that was it, he did it.

John had always said, somewhat proudly, that Sam had inherited his stubborn streak from his side of the family. Historically, Winchester men were all bull-headed yet Dean seemed to have inherited a more easy-going nature from his mother's side. Using his easy charm to get what he wanted, rather than the sheer bloody-mindedness of his Father and kid brother. Sam knew Dean had the stubborn streak in him too; there was nothing that anyone could do to make Dean do something he didn't want to, aside from his brother and father, of course. But the difference between Dean and the rest of his family was the fact that Dean never tried to force anyone_ else_ do anything they didn't want to do, it just wasn't in his nature, and it was something Sam had always admired in his big brother.

When they were little kids and Sam hadn't wanted to go to bed, even though it was way past his bed time, Dean had never forced him to go, even though he easily could have. When Sam was eleven and had told Dean he was going to run away, Dean had explained that he would miss him and needed him and that he should stay, for his sake if nothing else – and Sam has stayed.

This was the main reason that Sam hadn't been able to tell him what he was planning. The reason he had hidden the college forms and not breathed a word of what he was going to do. If he told Dean, his brother would try to talk him out of it and would have probably succeeded. He just couldn't let him. He had to do this.

All Sam had ever wanted was a normal life, he wanted friends he didn't have to constantly lie to, and girlfriends, and a permanent home, a one day he wanted a normal job that didn't involve automatic weapons and holy water, and this was his one chance at getting it - his way out, the road to blessed normality. And as sorry as he was going to be, leaving Dean behind, he had to do it. Had to.

He had briefly considered asking Dean to go with him, but he knew it was pointless. Dean would no sooner leave Dad, than he would fly to the moon. Dean's blind faith in the man was something that Sam couldn't understand, his willingness to follow their Dad without question was terrifying to Sam. He sometimes thought that Dean was no longer the kid he'd grown up with - over the years Dean had grown into a hunter extraordinaire, someone willing to die for the cause without a thought for himself, and this worried Sam deeply.

Dean was like an unrelenting clockwork soldier, wound up at the age of four by their distraught and vengeful father, and sent on a kamikaze collision course with an unbeatable enemy. He had a mission that he would never deviate from and his own thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams were irrelevant. Their Dad had strived to train every romantic notion, every spiritual wonder out of Dean's brain, every weakness from his body, and Sam feared that all that was going to be left of the sensitive, thoughtful kid that he had once known and loved, was a Dean shaped skin covering a body of icy steel and a brittle heart of lead.

As far back as he could remember, Dean had never spoken of any ambitions he'd ever had for himself, any dreams he held deep within his heart, and Sam often wondered what would happen to his brother if they did ever manage to hunt down and kill the Yellow Eyed Demon. Sam would be able to have the life he had always dreamed of, but what would Dean have? Without their father's driving need to inflict bloody revenge for what was stolen from them all those years ago, without the imperative to protect Sam at all costs, Dean had nothing. How could his brother ever lead a normal life after all the years of living the life that he'd lived? How would he ever be able to settle down and have a regular home, a family? How could he ever work a normal job? And would he even want to?

Sam could have cursed his Dad for what he'd done to Dean over the years, for how much his obsessive quest had changed him. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, but it wasn't something that couldn't be taken back. And given the choice, Dean wouldn't have taken it back anyway. A hunter was what he was, what he'd always been and what he'd be until the day he died.

How could you take back something that was your whole life without leaving anything but a huge gaping void behind?

**-o-**

Dean rejoined the land of the living the way he always did: nought to sixty in three seconds flat - and like always, he managed to scare the crap out of Sam in the process. Gasping, his face slipped momentarily under the cold water in the tub, and he immediately began to freak out, arms and legs thrashing, grasping blindly at the sides of the tub, trying to find a purchase on the wet porcelain.

"Dad!" Sam screamed, his voice deafening in the small tiled room, and jumping up, he dragged his brother up by the arms above the surface of the water as Dean coughed wetly, dragging rattling, panicked breath into his lungs.

Sam had been leaning against the tub, watching Dean closely, making sure he didn't slip under the water and drown, or have another seizure, or just stop breathing all together. He knew his brother was in a bad way, but hadn't realised just how bad, not until he came back to the room and found him in the tub with John holding his head up, frantically trying to talk him back to consciousness. John had looked frightened and Sam's blood had turned to ice water in his veins. Their Dad didn't _do_ scared.

Sam had driven the stolen car down to the local mini-mart car park, wiped it down, and jogged back to the motel wanting to hurry back to Dean, but not in a rush to see his dad again. John had never spoken to him like that before, never threatened him, never laid a hand on him in anger, on either of them for that matter. He could be an asshole sometimes, a scary, obsessed bastard, but John had _never_ been violent with his kids.

"I'm back Dad. I got rid of the car. You don't have to worry about it now, okay. No one saw me, so you don't have to worry about that_ either_…" Sam called out from the bedroom area as he let himself back into the motel room. He was still pissed at his Dad for yelling at him, but he was more anxious to see if Dean was okay. Frowning at the wet sheets on the floor, he dropped the door key in the bowl on the dresser and walked into the bathroom, stopping dead the second he stepped through the door. "_Oh man._" He gasped.

Dean was slumped in the bathtub up to his chest in blood-tinged water as John knelt beside the tub, holding Dean's head up with one hand and gently wiping the bloodstained flannel down his face and neck with the other, speaking quiet words to him that Sam couldn't quite make out.

"He started fitting. This is the only way I could get his temperature down quick enough - he was too hot - it was too dangerous to leave him." John said out loud, glancing over his shoulder at Sam, but Sam realised he was only half talking to him. It sounded more like he was talking to himself, trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.

"Fitting? You mean like a seizure? Dean had a seizure?" Sam cried, edging closer to the tub. Dean really looked awful, his skin was grey, and the bruises on his forehead and chest were blooming like purple roses. He had seen Dean in a mess before, too many times, but never this bad. He looked like death warmed over. "Is he gonna be okay?"

John looked at Sam, his face grim set. "I don't know, Sammy. I don't know… I need to you come and sit with him while I make a phone call - I need to get him some help."

Sam hesitated for a second, suddenly feeling like he was going to throw up. He took a deep breath before kneeling next to his Dad beside the tub. He couldn't tear his eyes from his brother's pale face.

"Just keep talking to him, Sammy. Try to wake him up… Just watch him close, okay Son?"

"Okay Dad." Sam replied, nodding vehemently as John got to his feet and walked stiffly to the other room. A moment later he, heard John start speaking to someone on the phone and from where he was sat, it sounded like he was trying to arrange for a one of Bobby's chums, some doctor or medic or something, to come out to them. Sam felt like asking why they didn't just call 911 but he didn't have the energy. They were laying low in Arizona for a reason and Sam didn't really want to know why. Still, any doctor was going to better than no doctor. Dean really needed help.

Hearing Sam's panicked scream, John dropped the phone and ran back into the bathroom. Sam had hold of his brother under his arms, keeping him upright as Dean's head lolled limply against his shoulder and he coughed and gasped for breath.

"Dean?" John yelled, dropping down beside his sons. Grabbing hold of Dean round the back of the neck, he gently laid him back in the tub as Dean moaned through gritted teeth, face creased with pain. "C-cold." He gasped.

"I know Kiddo, I'm sorry but I had to put you in the tub. You've got heatstroke, I had to get your temperature down." John told him, speaking slowly and deliberately so Dean you follow what he was saying, then he smiled weakly and looked down at the floor. "Jesus Dean, you scared the crap out of me. I thought I was going to lose you."

Sam glanced nervously from his Dad stricken face to his brother's. "Are you okay, Bro? Are you with us?"

Dean's eyes flickered open and he blinked owlishly, trying to clear his blurry vision before reaching out and grabbing hold of Sam's t-shirt, trying to pull him closer as he murmured something that they couldn't quite make out. Leaning in closer, Sam put his ear close to Dean's lips and this time he heard what Dean was trying hard to tell him.

"What'd he say, Sam?" John asked, sitting down on the edge of the tub, watching his youngest son's face darken with something that looked remarkably like anger, then Sam gently unwound Dean's fingers from his shirt and got to his feet.

"He said he got your map, Dad. Hope it was freakin' worth it."

**-o-**


	9. Chapter 9

_**Okay, I really want to just say a big thank you to everyone who has read this fic of mine. I have had some lovely feedback and I really appreciate it.**_

_**I also want to thank you all for being patient - I must be the slowest writer on the planet, but then I wasn't intending to write a 22'000 + word fic :-)**_

_**I just hope this last chapter was worth the wait, cuz I struggled... I really struggled...**_

_**Enjoy xxx**_

* * *

**Nine**

**-o-**

Dean watched, glassy eyed, as the blonde dude who looked like a reject from a WWF Tag Team wrapped the tourniquet round the top of his arm and began slapping the crook of his elbow, trying to bring up a vein. On the bedside table sat the biggest needle Dean had ever seen, and he licked his dry lips, swallowing nervously. On the bed next to his brother's, Sam sat watching the proceedings like an eager med student on his first rounds.

"Do you have to?" Dean asked, his voice hoarse and about an octave lower than it should have been, and the blonde guy whose name Dean couldn't quite keep in his head gave him a grim little smile and nodded. "Sorry Kid, I gotta." After quickly swabbing the crook of Dean's elbow with alcohol, he picked up the needle, hesitating at the anxious expression on his patient's face. "Close your eyes man, it'll be done in a second." And Dean did as he was told, wincing at the sharp sting.

"Not too bad, huh?" the guy asked, quickly taping the needle down with surgical tape and untying the tourniquet, and Dean shook his head, letting out the breath that he'd been holding. Compared to everything else that was hurting, getting an inch thick needle stuck into his arm wasn't really that bad after all. Then he watched the guy attach a bag of fluid to the IV line and hang it from the buffalo horns that were nailed to the wall above their beds – turning the motel room into some sort of weird cowboy themed hospital ward.

"A couple of these babies and you should feel better." The guy told him, sitting back down on the edge of the bed and motioning for Sam to hand him a pillow, he gently laid Dean's arm out straight on top of it. "The reason you feel so lousy, kid, is because you are so dehydrated. When you have some fluids in you, you'll feel human again, I promise."

"What about the seizure he had, Miller?" John said from the end of the bed. He had been standing there the whole time, arms crossed tensely. "And that bump on his head?"

_Miller._ _That was the dude's name._ Dean chided himself._ Lee Miller. Bobby's hunter pal, army medic guy. WWF Superstar…_

"Well, Winchester…" Miller replied, levelling his sharp gaze at John. Admittedly, the guy looked and sounded like some old hippy stoner who spent his days rocking on his own pill stash, but his eyes were as clear and as sharp as their Dad's. There was no mistaking that Miller had seen action, and even as fuzzy round the edges as Dean felt, he could clearly see that the two hunters had some sort of history and that the guy wasn't taking well to John's presence looming over him.

But then their Dad could rub a Saint up the wrong way. It was his gift.

"Your kid has a hard head, don't think that bump is gonna cause a problem. Might need a stitch or two in that cut though - but I can sort that out later. He might have a little rib fracture and his knees are going to be sore as hell for a while, but that's all small stuff. Nothing that won't heal. I'm gonna give him something to stop him from seizing again - something to make him sleep; a little Diazepam -" And he smiled conspiratorially at Dean. "- that's Valium to you and me… Housewife's best friend." And rummaging around in the big black bag that was sitting on the floor by the bed, he pulled out a white pot and shook out two small white pills into Dean's hand.

Dean eyed them warily. He wasn't really much for taking meds - only taking painkillers when he absolutely had to. But what the hell? He couldn't feel any worse than he did, and he popped the Valium into his mouth, downing them with a sip from the half-empty bottle of Gatorade that Sam handed him with the all efficiency of a theatre nurse.

_Swab - Scalpel - Purple sports drink. _

Dean wasn't much for Gatorade either – in fact, he hated the stuff, but his Dad was watching him like a hawk from the end of the bed, and he decided it was best to do exactly as he was told. He could have cut the tension between Sam, Dad and Miller with a knife and he hoped the pills would hurry up and knock him out before it all kicked off around him. He felt too lousy to be stuck in the middle of yet another row and by the way his Dad and Sam were avoiding eye contact, he guessed round one had already happened.

"They only had purple in the shop, Dean. Sorry." Sam told his brother, seeing Dean's nose wrinkle at the taste of the drink. He loved the stuff, but he knew Dean didn't.

"He's not drinking it for the taste, Sam." Miller replied. "We gotta try and replace all the electrolytes and other bits and bobs that he sweated out during his beauty sleep in the desert." Then he turned back to look at John, voice quieter. "He should really be in a hospital, Winchester. I'm only going to be able to do so much here... I.V. meds are hard to come by, you know. Can't just pick up supplies at the local Wal-Mart."

"I'll pay you for everything, don't worry about that." John replied, and Miller sighed. "That's not what I meant and you know it. Your boy here was lucky, John. Heatstroke isn't something to screw around with. If you hadn't put him in the tub when you did, I'm not sure he would still be with us."

Dean looked over at Sam. His little brother was staring at the floor, biting his lip, looking like he was about to explode and Dean inwardly cringed. He had seen it start this way so many times, Sam just blurting out anything and everything that was on his mind, to hell with the consequences. He truly wore his heart on his sleeve and most of the time Dean admired Sam for his openness, his_ fearlessness_ - other times he wanted to throttle him for it.

"Don't start, Sam. I'm okay." Dean told his little brother, mustering as much sincerity as he could, but he knew Sam wouldn't buy it. The kid knew how to read him, always had. No matter how hard Dean tried to hide, no matter how many walls he put up, Sam always found him in the end.

"You're not ok, Dean. You nearly died. You should be in a hospital. Dad should have taken you to the ER…"

Dean winced. He felt better than he did an hour or two ago, but not much. His head was thumping, his knees, despite the icepacks Miller had placed over them, were so swollen and painful he wondered if he hadn't actually broken his kneecaps, and that wasn't even mentioning the stab of pain that shot across his chest every time he tried to move. "Sam, please. Don't do this now. I'm okay – really. I'm just tired."

"Dean, you're _always_ okay… Your eyes could be bleeding, or – or your arm could be hanging on by a thread and you'd say you're okay!"

"Sammy – Don't. _Please!"_ Dean pleaded, trying to push himself up on his elbow. Miller shook his head and put a hand on Dean's shoulder, pushing him gently back down to the bed.

"Don't get up, kid." He warned him gently, and for once, Dean did as he was told. Everything had begun to get fuzzy again, and the room was spinning. Being upright was definitely_ not_ a good idea.

Sam shook his head. "No, Dean. This needs to be said and you _never_ will. You almost died. You had a seizure. You were that sick. You could be dead now and _he_ didn't even call an ambulance. If I didn't go and _steal_ a car, you'd still be laying out in the Impala in the desert! He couldn't care less about you Dean, he couldn't care less about either of us!"

"Sam, I did what I had to do. You don't know why we are out here…" John began, but Sam didn't give him a chance to finish.

"And why don't we know? Because you never tell us, that's why. You expect me and Dean to just follow orders that you give us and you expect us to do it on blind faith, but that's not good enough anymore, Dad. You should have called an ambulance; you should have got Dean to a hospital. He needs a proper doctor, not some stoned old army medic!" Sam yelled, getting to his feet and squaring up to face John. "We are your sons; we're not your soldiers, Dad. You could at least pretend you care about us."

John stared at Sam, _"I_ don't care about _you_, huh, Sam?" he said quietly and Sam frowned. He'd clearly expected John to just lose it – he'd pushed him before, but maybe not this far. Dean however knew exactly what was coming and he closed his eyes – knowing this was the calm before the storm. Why couldn't they all just get along like before? Why did everything have to turn into full-scale warfare?

_Stop it! Please Sam – Dad, just stop it…_

Sam bit his lip, breathing heavily. "No Dad, all you care about is the hunt. All you care about is revenge. Dean could have died today and you did nothing. You don't care about me or him."

"I'm okay Sam, it all worked out okay." Dean murmured. He had done as he was told and lay back down on the bed, but the room was still spinning and he covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow, fighting the dizziness that washed through him. Miller gave him a sympathetic pat on the arm.

"Hey kid?" he whispered, and Dean cracked open an eye to look at the hunter who gestured a thumb towards John and Sam who were now glaring at each other like two stags sizing each other up. "Those two like this all the time, or is this best behaviour seeing as they have company an' all?"

Dean couldn't help but smile. Despite his initial doubts, he really kind of liked Miller – and the drugs the guy had given him were beginning to work a treat. "Dude, you have no idea."

"How about I leave you the Valium and you can slip them a couple every time they start to kick off." Miller continued, smiling that knowing smile again.

"Dude, that would be… _Great_." Dean murmured as his eyes fluttered closed again. If he'd had the strength, he would have got out of bed, grabbed the Impala's keys, and just driven off somewhere – anywhere. The trouble with this plan though was that he barely had energy to keep his eyes open. The other problem was that the Impala was wrecked out in the desert somewhere, waiting for Bobby to come and tow it back to his junk yard – and at that moment, he wished Bobby would come and throw a chain around him and drag him off somewhere too.

He'd had enough of being piggy in the middle.

"Have you finished, Sam?" John said quietly after a few moments. It was clear that John was giving him an out, giving him the chance to back down, but Sam wasn't going to back down – not this time. A line had been crossed; a line that John had pissed in the desert sand between them and they all knew that now Sam had crossed it, there was no going back.

John stared at Sam for a little while, not saying anything, not moving, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and like a mirror image, Sam stared defiantly back, expecting his Dad to start packing up his bag and walking out on them like he usually did, but instead of grabbing his own duffle, John went to the cupboard and dragged out Sam's bag, throwing it on his bed.

"So you think _I'm_ selfish, do you Sammy? Think _I_ don't care about you boys?"

Sam stared at the bag and Dean could see sudden, unadulterated terror on his face. John was pulling clothes out of the bag and throwing them all over the floor and a moment later, he held the college application forms in his hands. Looking up, he waved the papers under Sam's nose, looking keenly at him, as if he expected some explanation as to what they were and why they were in Sam's bag, when he knew damn well what they were, and when Sam remained silent, John threw them on the floor by Sam's feet like a gauntlet.

"Well, Son? Were you just going to sneak out like a coward one day, or were you actually planning on saying goodbye to me and your brother?"

Sam opened his mouth but nothing came out. After finding the application forms, Dean had had visions of this conversations so many times over the past few months and in all the scenarios he had run through in his head, it had never ended well.

"I'm going to do pre-law at Stanford. I've been offered a full ride and I'm going." Sam eventually said.

John stared at Sam for a moment and when he spoke again, his voice was cold and hard and Dean could see his hands shaking with barely contained fury. "You're not going anywhere Samuel Winchester. I don't care if you won the state lottery or got crowned King of freakin' England. You are not going to college because you are _not_ leaving this family. End of story."

Sam looked down at his feet; breathing heavily, trying to keep calm but Dean could see how close to tears he was – and he wasn't surprised because he felt exactly the same way. Most parents would be over the moon to hear what Sam had just said – how many kids got a full ride? Most parents would be cracking open the champagne right about now. But then nothing in their lives was how it was meant to be. John wasn't going to listen, he wasn't going to reason – once again, John Winchester had laid down the mission and expected his soldiers to follow...

"You can't stop me." Sam said quietly as John stalked around the room like a caged animal, and Dean could see that he meant it. It was college for Christ's sake… Going to college was what people were _meant_ to do.

John stopped pacing and stopped in front of the sideboard, picking up his truck keys and clutching them so tightly in his fist that Dean expected to see blood trickle out. Then he came over to Dean's bedside and stood over him and Dean found himself wishing he could just sink into the mattress, anything to get away from that look of his Dad's face – an expression somewhere between fury and utter disappointment. "I suppose _you_ knew about this?"

Dean opened his mouth to reply but instead Miller got to his feet and put a hand up to John's chest, keeping him back. "Winchester, leave this kid out of it for now, okay. I can see you're angry man, but Dean really ain't fit for a rumble."

John stopped, practically bristling, and Dean could see he was torn between listening to Miller and just flattening the guy. Then he sagged and looked back down, and the betrayal Dean saw in his Dad's eyes made him feel sick.

"I only saw the forms; I didn't know he was going for sure." Dean told him. "I swear, Dad, I didn't know…."

John was silent for a moment, breathing heavily and Dean could tell he was struggling to keep from exploding. Then without another word, he walked out the door, slamming it behind him and they heard the truck as John gunned the engine and screeched off into the night.

Sam stayed where he was, looking utterly shell-shocked, and after a few moments, Miller got to his feet and patted Sam on the shoulder, concern etched on his grizzled features and Dean wondered briefly if the guy had children of his own.

"You okay, Kid?" The medic asked and Sam nodded, before sinking down onto the other bed with his head in his hands.

"It'll be okay, Sammy. It will… I'll make it okay." Dean told him gently, ignoring the spinning of the room as he elbowed himself up. But they both knew these were empty promises and Sam looked up at him, face ashen and tear streaked. They had both done their fair share of crying over the years, but Dean had never seen his little brother look so crushed - so defeated, and at that moment in time, he hated his Dad for doing that to Sam.

"You can't. Not this time, Dean. It's not going to be okay this time." Sam sniffed, and Dean knew that he was right.

This time, it really wasn't going to be okay.

**-o-**

It was the summer of 1989 and Sam and Dean were laid up at Bobby's house with Chicken Pox when John had first heard about the Colt. He had wanted to stay in the motel they had been holed up in for the past two weeks, but when Dean came down hard with the infection two days after his little brother, John knew he had to take the boys somewhere they would both be looked after while he finished the hunt he was on. Besides, school was out and staying at Bobby's junkyard was like a holiday for the boys. Dean always had hours of amusement tinkering with the old junkers sitting around the place, and both boys liked playing with Bobby's dog Blue – a Rottweiler so big it could have bitten Sam's head off in one quick snap of it's giant jaws, but the old mutt was a docile as a kitten around the boys. Plus Bobby had books – millions of books, and even when he was very young, Sam loved to study, much to John's pride and Dean's amusement.

Bobby hadn't minded John brining his sick kids to stay – he loved Sam and Dean almost like they were his own children and although John drove him to thoughts of cold-blooded murder sometimes, he liked having him around too. The man could track demons like no one he'd ever met before and he was always useful for whatever research he was working on. There were not many supernatural creatures that John Winchester hadn't hunted and killed.

It was one night after the boys had been put to bed in Bobby's guest bedroom, doused head to toe in calamine lotion yet still scratching themselves to pieces, that Bobby cracked open a bottle of Jack and invited John to join him at the table. John had eyed him warily, taking the whisky. On the table was the biggest book he'd ever seen - about two foot wide and half a foot thick. Not exactly light reading and John was tired. Digging up graves to salt and burn the bones of the vengeful dead was hard and thankless work and he just wanted to sleep.

Bobby swallowed a big gulp of the whisky and placing the glass on the table, he opened the book at the bookmarked page and beckoned John over, pointing to an illustrated passage that showed an engraving of a man that John vaguely recognised.

"Samuel Colt." Bobby said, picking up the glass and downing the rest of the amber coloured liquid.

John nodded, knowing he'd seen the man's face before but he was confused. Why was Bobby showing him a picture of a long dead gun maker?

Bobby reached for the bottle and poured himself another slug of whisky and he turned to look at John, a strange little smile playing on his lips. John frowned; Bobby had some intel, but was going to make him work for it. "Okay, Singer. Why are you showing me a picture of Samuel Colt?"

"Dammit, John." Bobby replied, pointing to the text below the picture. "Just read the entry, will you?" And John did as he was told, eyes following the faded print and when he had finished, he dropped the glass to the table, hands shaking too badly to hold it.

"Is this true, Bobby?" He asked the grizzled hunter. It couldn't be true – it was impossible. The words he'd just read were the answer to everything.

Bobby was silent for a moment, draining the last of his Jack before handing the bottle to John, then he looked up, meeting his friend's eyes. The text in the book referred to a gun – a very special gun. A gun that could kill a Demon stone dead.

"For Christ's sake, Singer… Is this true?" John repeated, and Bobby nodded, reaching for the bottle once more.

"It's true John. That Colt is real. And I just might know how to find it too. Now all we need is a map."

**-o-**

Sam sat on the edge of his bed. It had just gone midnight and their Dad hadn't come home yet. In the corner of the room, the TV was on, quietly playing some old black and white western full of long dead actors that Sam didn't recognise. He knew that Dean would probably consider the movie to be a classic and would have berated him for not knowing what he was missing, but Dean was sleeping restlessly in the other bed and Sam wasn't really watching the TV, it was just a distraction.

Dean had woken a few times since Miller had left, disorientated and hurting. Sam had brought him water, tried to get him to drink more Gatorade and given him a couple of the painkillers that the medic had left for him. He still felt ridiculously hot to the touch and a couple of times Sam had carefully laid a cold damp washcloth on his brother's forehead, trying his hardest to avoid the stitches Miller had put into the cut on Dean's hairline. The medic had told him that Dean would probably run a fever for a few days, and as long as his temperature didn't start rising drastically, then he was probably going to be okay. Sam was exhausted himself, but sleep was pretty much out of the question. He was too worried about Dean and too keyed up about what had happened – going over the row over and over in his head. He couldn't believe that Dad had just walked out and left them, left Dean as sick as he was. And he had called _Sam_ selfish.

Pulling the phone out of his pocket, Sam scrolled down the numbers on the screen until he came to his Dad's, thumb hovering over the call button for a moment, before throwing it back on the bed behind him. What was the point of trying to talk to him? It would just lead to more yelling and Sam was too tired to yell. He was tired of everything. He just wanted a chance at being a regular guy, a chance to try a life that didn't involve digging up corpses, bad motel rooms and rock salt loaded sawed-offs. He just wanted normal.

Sam looked over at his brother. Dean was wrapped up in tangle of sheets in the other bed, arm thrown over his face, looking like he was trying to protect himself from some unseen danger and suddenly Sam found his eyes blurring with unexpected tears. Leaving this life meant leaving Dean and that was going to be the hardest thing he'd ever had to do – they had never ever been apart. His big brother had been the one constant in his life, the one person in the whole world he knew he could rely on. When he'd been hurt, it was Dean who'd looked after him, when he'd been sick, Dean had made him soup and made it all better. Dad had taught him about weapons - how to shoot, how to fight, but it was Dean who had taught him to hustle, taught him how to talk his way into things and back out of them again if he had to - taught him about girls. His big brother had always been there when he needed him. Who was going to be there for Dean when he was gone? Their dad sure as hell wasn't.

"I'm sorry, man." Sam whispered in the dark, and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he padded quietly into the bathroom and pulled the door closed behind him. Heart pounding, he switched on the shaving light above the sink and turned on the tap, splashing his face with cold water to wash away the tears – barely able to look at himself in the mirror. Then sinking to the floor, Sam pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in his arms, desperately trying to contain the fraught sobs that burst out of him so Dean wouldn't hear him crying. But Sam had never been able to hide anything from his brother and a few minutes later there was a knock on the door and Dean called his name quietly.

"Shit!" Sam whispered, quickly scrubbing at his face, trying to wipe away the tears with his sleeve and he pulled himself to his feet as his brother opened the door and pushed his way into the room. Dean was white faced apart from two spots of flushed colour on his cheeks, hair plastered to his head with sweat. He was wavering slightly on his feet, left arm held protectively across his chest and Sam couldn't help but wince at the bruising that lay behind it. "Dean, you shouldn't be out of bed," He told him, and Dean shrugged, reaching for the sink.

"What? Dude, I gotta take a leak." He replied dismissively, but Sam could see how unsteady he was on his feet, see the pain etched onto his ashen face and he was holding onto the sink for support so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"I doubt that." Sam answered and Dean sighed heavily, visibly sagging. Anyone else might have believed him, that he really did need to use the bathroom, but Sam knew better. Dean had literally dragged himself out of bed just to make sure he was all right. "Okay Sammy," Dean said after a moment, letting out a shaky breath and he closed his eyes, knowing he was rumbled. "I don't really have to pee..."

"_I know_." Sam replied gently, and slipping his arm underneath Dean's, he pulled his brothers hand out of the death grip he had on the sink and slowly guided him across the faded cactus patterned carpet and back to his bed. Easing him down, Sam picked up the water from the bedside table, helping Dean hold the glass in his shaking hands as he took a few sips and when he was done, Sam sat back on his own bed opposite him. "Are you okay, Bro?" He asked his brother gently when Dean had got his breath back.

"I'm peachy, Sam. How 'bout you?" Dean replied, looking up and meeting Sam's eyes. He looked shattered and Sam could see from the way he was holding himself, he was in pain, but that wasn't all. There was something in Dean's eyes that he couldn't quite read, something he hadn't seen before and it was wild and desperate and terrified and he didn't like that look one bit.

"Never better, Dean." Sam replied, his voice barely more than a strained whisper as fresh tears escaped down his cheeks, and this time he didn't even bother to wipe them away.

Dean sighed heavily. "Don't cry, Sammy. C'mon, we can work this out, okay..."

"How, Dean? How can we work this out?" Sam yelled, getting to his feet and Dean winced at the volume, knuckling the area between his eyebrows.

"Dude, please. Head really hurting here - "

"Sorry." Sam replied, lowering his voice. And he sat back dejectedly on his bed.

Dean was quiet for a moment before he looked back up at his brother. "He tries, you know. It's hard for him. No-one gave him a 'Dad of the Year' manual when Mom died… He's just scared, Sam. Maybe if you give him time to get used to the idea?"

Sam shook his head. "Dude, I've seen him take on a werewolf with his bare hands. Dad's not scared of anything." He was used to Dean defending their Dad's actions - he did it all the time. Dean was loyal to their father in a way he never could understand and if he was honest, it was the one thing about his brother that pissed him off. Dean could be as annoying as hell sometimes, he was an untidy, smart-mouthed slob, not to mention bossy – but these were all things that Sam had learned to deal with over the years. They were traits that made Dean who he was as much as his love of mullet rock, his easy charm and his outright selflessness – and given the chance, Sam wouldn't change any of it. But where Dad was concerned, Dean just took the crap that their Dad threw at him without a murmur of protest and he wished that Dean would stand up for himself sometimes and stop being Daddy good little soldier.

"He's scared of you being out on your own, Sam. Scared that he's not going to be around to protect you." Dean replied quietly, and scooting back onto the bed, he attempted to lay back down, hissing at the stab of pain from his injured ribs. "_Son-of-a-bitch!_"

Sam sighed. "Hold up, Dean. Let me help you." And reaching over, he gently lifted Dean's legs back on the bed and then grabbing all the spare pillows, he smooshed them into a pile so Dean had something softer than the lumpy old motel mattress to lay back on. Then when Dean was settled, he pulled the discarded sheet back up to his chest, stopping short of actually tucking him in. "You okay now?" He asked.

Dean nodded in reply, eyes shut tightly as he got used to the change in altitude, and when Sam was sure Dean wasn't about to puke or have another seizure or both, he flopped back on his own bed and lay on his back, watching the shadows from the silver light of the TV play across the ceiling.

_The ceiling... That's where it all started... That's where she died... Where she burned..._

"Does he blame me?" Sam said suddenly, rolling over onto his side to look at Dean. "Is that why he's always on my case? Why he won't let me go to college?"

"Blame you?" Dean replied after a moment, cracking open an eye to look at his brother. "Blame you for what?"

"For Mom, Dean. The Demon – he was at my crib, in my nursery. Is he punishing me for Mom dying?"

"What the hell, Sam? Where did that come from?" Dean asked, his expression hardening. "Sam, Dad might not always show it, but he loves you more than anything... How could you even think something like that?"

"Because it's the only thing that makes sense, Dean. Nothing I do is ever good enough. Nothing I do ever makes him proud... Dean, I got a full ride_. A full ride, man_. Most parents would be over the moon, you know."

"I know, Sam -"

"It's not like I'm asking him for anything. Christ Dean, neither of us has ever asked Dad for a damn thing... All I want is for him to let me go."

"Sam, I know -"

"I don't want this life, Dean. I never wanted it. I can't spend the rest of my life trailing from one bad motel room to another, never having a home, never having any friends, anyone else to talk to other than you, Dean. I can't spend my life watching you and Dad get hurt over and over. I can't spend the rest of my life chasing after a Demon. A freakin' _Demon_, Dean! I just can't... Okay. I just can't!"

"I know Sammy... I know. I'll help you, okay."

Sam wiped tears from his cheeks and looked back over at his brother. "W-what?"

"I said I'll help you, Sam. But please man, you gotta stop crying. You're breaking my freakin' heart here, okay."

In the pale light from the TV, Sam could see his brother's eyes shining with tears as well and he hated himself for doing this to Dean, hurting him like this, kicking him when he was already down - this wasn't how it was meant to happen. But then nothing was how it was meant to be. His whole life wasn't how it was meant to be.

"He'll kill you if you help me leave, you know. For real." Sam sniffed, wiping his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and Dean shrugged. "Maybe. But then he'll have no-one to do the laundry."

Sam smiled despite himself and curled into his one remaining pillow. No matter how bad he felt, Dean always knew what to say to make him feel better – and he wanted to believe him, more than anything. Wanted to believe that Dean would make this okay, because if he couldn't, he didn't know what he was going to do.

"Come with me, Dean?" Sam said suddenly, sitting up.

Dean's eyes were now closed, his breathing evening out as exhaustion brought him close to sleep once more and he when he didn't reply straight away, Sam thought he hadn't heard him.

"Dean, please. Come to college with me. We could get an apartment, you could get a regular job..."

"I have a job, Sam." Dean replied, still not looking at his brother.

"I know you do, Dean. Saving people, hunting things. The family business. But -"

"But nothing, Sam!" Dean replied, finally looking over at him. He looked angry but Sam knew better. Behind the anger there was fear in Dean's eyes. "I can't leave Dad, Sam. He needs me."

"You can't do this forever, man. One day you're going to get hurt – really hurt. One day you're not going to be okay."

"Sammy, _please_. I can't do this now_..."_ Dean gasped, and Sam could see the hurt on his face. His brother was struggling to stay conscious and Sam knew what he was doing to him wasn't fair. Not now, and getting up, he sat on the edge of his brother's bed. Dean was still shivering but Sam knew it wasn't from being cold, and he gently put the back of his hand to Dean's cheek, feeling the heat still pouring off him before Dean groggily swatted it away.

"I'm sorry, man. Go to sleep okay." He told his brother quietly. "We can talk about this when you're feeling better." And going back to his own bed, Sam curled up on his side again, watching Dean fall back into a restless sleep in the silver glow of the TV, until he heard the rumble of his Dad's truck pulling up outside. Then he closed his eyes, pretending he was asleep too - even when John covered him with a blanket, tucking him in like he had when Sam was little - until real sleep eventually took him.

And that night, Sam dreamed of fire.


End file.
